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A welcome stimulusTHE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency (Nama) is the largest – and for now – the only major player in the Irish property market, which has shrunk in size and activity since the building boom peaked in 2007. The agency was set up three years ago to take property development loans off the balance sheets of banks that had incurred huge unrealised losses on such lending, and were facing insolvency. Bank recapitalisation, which has cost taxpayers some €64 billion so far, was meant to ensure that banks could start lending again: something they have proved reluctant to do for a variety of reasons.
Serbian enigmaA NEW man? An erstwhile ally of Slobodan Milosovic, and later of another alleged war criminal, Vojislav Seselj, once a staunch, far-right Serb nationalist, friend of Russia, but latter-day convert to moderate europhile politics, Serbia’s new president Tomislav Nikolic is a bit of an enigma. And did the Serbs elect him because they believed and supported his conversion, or because they believed outgoing president Boris Tadic’s election claims that Nikolic is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, ultimately a dangerous unreconstructed nationalist? Was that his real appeal?

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Treaty is a social, political and economic threatOPINION:Voting No is not a rejection of the EU – it is to oppose the erosion of social rights. It is to reject better treatment for banks over people, writes PATRICK KINSELLA

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